Scaling up, Safeway disaster, and oil rancidity

Kettle Chips: Cameron Healy. The Wild Bet That Made a Brand

Most founders expand the “right” way: local → regional → national → international.

Cameron Healy totally skipped the “national” part. 

When Kettle Chips was still an upstart regional brand, Cameron made a move that seems almost reckless: he launched his thick-cut, kettle-cooked chips to the United Kingdom — one of the most competitive “crisps” markets on earth — before conquering the U.S.

And that wasn’t his first risky move. 

Before Kettle, Cameron was a turban-wearing Sikh entrepreneur in 1970s Salem, Oregon, building a natural foods business…until he was abruptly fired. He started again from scratch with a $10,000 bank loan.  Inspired by the extra thick, crunchy potato chips that he sampled on a trip to Hawaii, he taught himself how to fry sliced potatoes through trial-and-error.  

Then, just as Kettle started taking off overseas, another trip to Hawaii sparked a second act: Kona Brewing — a craft beer brand that initially lost $20K a month — for years — before Cameron was able to make it work.

Meanwhile, buoyed by its UK success, Kettle chips eventually spread across the US, becoming the top-selling natural chip in the country. 

What you’ll learn

• The hidden details (like cooking-oil quality control) that can make or break a chip
• How curiosity about British “crisp” culture fueled a risky UK rollout
• The decision that turned Kona Brewing from a money pit into a scalable brand

Timestamps

• 07:21 — “You had to get up at 3 a.m.”: building a life in a Sikh community in Salem
• 10:11 — Fired with four kids and no severance: the moment Cameron is forced to rebuild
• 12:04 — The $10K loan (helped along by the offer of ski passes)
• 14:06 — The 1980 peanut crop gamble that suddenly capitalized Cameron’s business
• 23:14 — “Pot Chips” was the original name…until friends told him how bad it was
• 24:48 — Hand-feeding potatoes into vats of oil: inventing a process with zero playbook
• 29:10 — The Safeway disaster: rancid oil, a rejected order, and demand evaporating overnight
• 31:52 — The car crash that jolted Cameron out of despair
• 46:35 — UK word-of-mouth “switches on”--with an extra boost from Lady Di
• 56:03 — Kona Brewing bleeds money…until one decision turns things around

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This episode was produced by Casey Herman with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Rommel Wood. Our engineers were Robert Rodriguez and Kwesi Lee.

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